There are many steps that can be taken to reawaken interest in voting and renew the faith of voters that city government is responsive to them. But the two charter amendments now going before L.A. voters are wrong steps. These measures take away city and school elections that now stand on their own and bury them at the bottom of federal and state election ballots. This is unacceptable for the second largest city in the United States.

And it does this in a most unseemly way. It hands a few City Hall politicians extra time on their terms. City Council president Herb Wesson, who pushed the proposals to the ballot, would be awarded 18 more months in office if the measures pass. This could benefit him personally by allowing him to run for another office in 2020 while still exerting leverage as an incumbent.

Instead of opening the door to reforms that would create more well-informed city residents or governance shaped by us, the charter amendments would effectively slam the door on such efforts at the city level. Gone would be any chance to schedule city elections on weekends or make election day a holiday. The city would have given away the keys. Lost would be voter attention, community forums, and in-depth news coverage specific to city and school board candidates, and ballot measures. They would be eclipsed by federal and state campaigns and the ad blitzes and bluster that blots out local debate.

And what about the matching funds program that is supposed to make city elections fairer and restore residents’ trust that wealthy candidates can’t run the table? They would be crushed by relegating our nonpartisan city elections to the bottom of the partisan even-year ballots. That’s not consolidation. That’s capitulation to the grip of big money in our politics. Large donors from labor and business would be able get their way in one step. It’s no coincidence that they are heavily funding the effort to pass the charter amendments.

The measures even fail their purported aims: Increasing turnout in every election. Primary election turnout in Los Angeles actually fell from our stand-alone city election of March 2013 to the state and federal election of June 2014. And it dropped for young voters. As other critics of the election scheme have noted, turnout by people of color voters dropped sizably in the even-year election, 40 percent for Latino voters.

Primary elections determine most City Council and school board elections. Since 2009, 19 of 23 City Council elections were decided in the primary election. And seven of nine school board elections were decided in the primary. Why would we take a backward step on the diversity of our primary electorate, which actually decides most local elections?

Fluctuation in city election turnout is not unique to L.A. New York’s sank to just 24 percent last year, just a notch above our own, and down from 57 percent two decades ago. In Seattle, where residents vote by mail, turnout rose last year to 53 percent. These cities aren’t panicking over shifts in participation and taking the radical step of giving up on their stand-alone city and school board elections. Nor should L.A.

Changing the timing of city elections betrays the broader effort we should all undertake to focus more closely on city governance, what’s at stake in city and school board elections, and our power to shape their course. These measures hold real dangers for those goals and foreclose further opportunities to achieve them.

We need more attention to city and school-board elections, not less. We need to drive up trust in city government and accountability to local stakeholders, not dampen them. We need real efforts to boost engagement and turnout, not these charter amendments.